In Tomcat 7, the password in the setting file: tomcat-users.xml is displayed as string encrypted by md5. In server.xml file: <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.LockOutRealm"> <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm" resourceName="UserDatabase" digest="md5"/> </Realm> echo -n yourpassword | md5sum make sure you change the password in tomcat-users.xml with md5 encrypted string.